


Waiting Game

by sixbeforelunch



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Background Het, Gen, Pon Farr, Vulcan Biology, Vulcan Culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:41:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22901881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sixbeforelunch/pseuds/sixbeforelunch
Summary: The patient doesn't want help. Doing nothing isn't in McCoy's nature, but sometimes there's nothing to be done.
Relationships: Leonard "Bones" McCoy & Spock
Comments: 10
Kudos: 58
Collections: Worldbuilding Exchange 2020





	Waiting Game

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fabulous_but_evil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabulous_but_evil/gifts).



> Content note: some discussion of the dub-con/non-con nature of pon farr
> 
> Many thanks to Small Hobbit for the beta and catching my typos.

"Blast it all, Spock! I'm supposed to be his doctor!"

Spock raised an eyebrow, unflappable as always. "Is not respecting your patient's autonomy and abiding by their wishes part of being a doctor?"

"Not when they're mentally incapacitated!"

"At present he is rational enough to make his wishes clear," Spock said, and McCoy was sure he detected a hint of resignation and perhaps even melancholy in the other's voice. 

"Poppycock!" said McCoy.

"If he is going to die, I believe he has the right to do it on his own terms." Spock tipped his head to the side ever so slightly. "And despite your blustering, so do you."

McCoy turned away, fists balled at his sides. The bitter truth was that Spock was right. Tavek had the prerogative to reject further care if that was what he wanted. McCoy might not agree with it, but he had to respect it. If his history of medicine class had taught him nothing else, it had taught him that things went very badly indeed when doctors decided that their position meant they could ignore their patient's right to self-determination.

With an aggravated sigh, he went outside. He walked a few meters away from the house, and stood with his hands clasped behind his back, looking up at the sky. It was one of those in-between times, later than the afternoon, but not quite evening. The sun was just beginning to set behind the distant mountains. The sky here was a brilliant shade of blue. A few wispy white clouds hung high overhead. Above them, the _Enterprise_ was in orbit, waiting for McCoy to check in. He fingered his communicator, but left it in his pocket. Jim wouldn't start to get worried for a while yet, and he wasn't in the mood to give an update.

What was he supposed to say? "Patient has decided he wants to die alone. I'm about as much use as a thermal vest on a hot Georgia night." 

That actually wasn't a bad analogy. He wasn't going to help, and he would probably just make Tavek more miserable than he already was if he insisted on forcing his presence on the man.

But blast it, it just wasn't fair!

"The universe rarely is, Doctor," said Spock.

McCoy whirled, glaring at him. "Don't sneak up on me like that! And don't read my mind!"

"No mind reading was required," Spock assured him. "You spoke aloud."

"Hmm. I'm never sure if I can trust you on that."

Spock blinked slowly, like a cat who had decided he trusted you, but was probably also judging you a little. "Doctor, even if the _faint_ residual telepathic bond that remains between us as a result of your temporary possession of my katra did permit me access to your thoughts, I would never be so crude as to read your mind without permission."

"Yeah, I know," said McCoy. He did know. The lady at Seleya, T'Lar, had talked him through all of that. He'd just been winding Spock up, but he found that he wasn't up for the sport after all. He scrubbed at his face. "I'm tired." He fished out a canteen and took a long drink. The air was dry and hot. He sat down on a stone bench and was only a little surprised when Spock sat down next to him.

They were quiet for a while, looking out over the desert landscape. Tavek and his family had come to Ja'Kar to help the natives with a new irrigation system that was supposed to create several million acres of desperately needed arable land. It was one of those natives, a Ja'Kari woman named Hesh who served as his assistant, who had called for help when Tavek had gotten sick. The _Enterprise_ had been diverted, McCoy beamed down, and one sweep with a medical tricorder had revealed an old-fashioned case of Vulcan pon farr.

"He's fortunate the _Enterprise_ was the ship that came," McCoy said. "Another doctor might not have known what he was looking at."

Spock nodded.

"It's really a bad idea to keep something like this out of the medical literature."

"It would be worse for our secret to be written down for all to see," Spock said. "People would know."

"That's kind of the point." McCoy kicked at the gravel at his feet. A few stones skidded across the small yard and bounced off of a tall planter holding some colorful native foliage. "You have to realize how stupid it is to keep something like this secret." He wasn't sure if he meant 'you'-Spock or 'you'-Vulcan society as a whole. Maybe both. "How illogical it is."

"Nothing about pon farr is logical," Spock said softly.

"Spock--"

Spock pinned him with an intense look. "Doctor, what do you call it when a person is forced to have sex under threat of death, or the death of someone close to them?"

McCoy swallowed. "I'd call that rape."

"It could be said, then, that we Vulcans are raped by our biology. Do you presume to sit in judgement of how we choose to mitigate the trauma of this aspect of our heritage?"

McCoy looked away. "It would be pretty arrogant of me to do that."

They fell silent again. The city where Tavek lived was a small one, and his house was on the edge of it. A few people walked past on the other side of the stone wall. A parent with two children in tow. A heavily tattooed man smoking something strong smelling. A girl with multiple facial piercings. But no one approached. McCoy had assured Hesh that Tavek was not contagious and that he would get excellent medical care--hah! As if McCoy could actually help him!--but had emphasized that he needed to be left alone to "rest". Fortunately, no one had decided to drop by to visit the patient.

"Do you really consider it rape?" McCoy asked. Spock looked at him and he quickly qualified, "I'm not saying you're wrong."

After a second of hesitation, Spock said, "When resolved in the usual way, with a trusted mate, no, I would not call it rape. But even under the best of circumstances, it is a hard thing to be stripped of one's reason and reduced to a biological urge."

A breeze rustled the foliage in the yard. McCoy crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the side of the house. "I wouldn't, because it would fly in the face of moral decency to have sex with someone who has made it clear he doesn't want any help from me, let alone that, but if I went in there and offered myself up to Tevak..."

"As a mate?"

McCoy nodded.

"Difficult to say. If he slipped into the plak tow and lost all sense of himself, he might accept you. Or he might kill you. You are not who he wants."

No. The one he wanted was far away, too far away. That was the whole problem. He needed his mate and she wasn't here. At least the kids were with her. Small mercy that they didn't have to be here when their father died. Then again...

"Will she die too? His mate?" Her name was Yiluv. Tavek had murmured her name while McCoy had first examined him, repeating it almost like a mantra.

"She may. Females experience pon farr through their bond with a male and not as a result of their own biology. There are those who are intersex or otherwise do not fit neatly into that binary, but in general that is the way of things. A bonded woman whose husband dies in the throws of pon farr will die forty three point four percent of the time."

They fell silent again. McCoy was no stranger to the myriad of ways that a person's fundamental biology could hurt them, but pon farr seemed especially cruel. To his human sensibilities, sex was supposed to be fun. It was supposed to be about love, and choice. Pon farr wasn't any of those things. Vulcans could have the sort of fun, pleasant sex that Humans generally enjoyed outside of pon farr--Amanda had answered his stammered question way back when with a simple "yes" and a sly grin that spoke volumes about why a woman like that would be content married to a man like Sarek--but pon farr was something else.

Kept out of the medical texts or not, there were rumors out there about it. People had made porn. Of course people had made porn. He'd never seen it, but he could easily imagine it, clean and stylized. Computer generated Vulcans with improbable breasts and unlikely genitals acting out some human's idea of a usually stoic Vulcan turning into a passionate lover, turning something so personal and private and potentially dangerous and hurtful into a quick way to get off. No wonder the Vulcans preferred to keep it to themselves. The rumors were bad enough. Give people the details, and they risked being further fetishized, and if there was nothing medical science could do for you anyway, what was the point of opening yourself up like that?

"Do the men ever live? Even occasionally."

"It has been known to happen, but it is so rare that calculating the odds is all but impossible." Spock's brows drew together. Few things annoyed him like insufficient data.

McCoy stood and paced across the yard. The sun was mostly gone now, and the sky was a riot of pink and purple and yellow. "What about the fight? If he fought someone...I mean that's how..." He stopped. Spock was being open with him, surprisingly so, but he was pretty sure that the candor did not extend to Spock's own experiences with pon farr. How Spock had managed it since that first abortive attempt at a marriage to T'Pring, McCoy didn't know.

Spock raised an eyebrow. "The kal-if-fee is not a reliable substitute for mating," he said. "Usually the pon farr is not resolved by the act of fighting, and the victor must still go into seclusion with the mate he has, for lack of a better translation, won. And baring human doctors bearing drugs, it generally ends in at least one death. It is certainly not a viable solution here."

"This doctor has drugs and knows how to use them," McCoy pointed out, but it wasn't a serious suggestion. What had happened all those years ago on Vulcan...the confluence of circumstances had been just right. McCoy was pretty sure if he'd had actually known what he was up against, he never would have pulled it off.

Spock's communicator chirped. Spock answered, and Jim asked, "How's it going down there?"

Spock looked at McCoy, who answered, "Not well. Without his wife, Tevak doesn't stand much of a chance and there's really nothing I can do for him. Any success tracking down that passenger ship his wife is supposed to be on?"

"We found it. Turns out Yiluv has been trying to get them to reroute her for a few days, but they wouldn't do it. Uhura just about ripped the captain a new orifice when they told her that."

McCoy chuckled despite the circumstances. Uhura was maybe the nicest lady he knew, but he knew better than to make her really angry.

"I've called in a favor to try to get her here even sooner. How long does he have, Bones?"

McCoy sighed. "Hard to say. Based on the readings I took earlier in the day, I'd give him another twelve to eighteen hours, tops."

"Bones, that's good news. I thought we might be down to a few hours. I can't promise anything yet, but we could have her home within the hour. Tell him to hold on," Jim said. "Tell him there's still a chance." Jim's voice had that desperate edge to it that it got when he was trying once again to prove to death that it might win someday, but not today. Jim would move mountains to save a single life if there was even a the pale shadow of a chance, and sometimes even if there wasn't. _Trying to make up for all those lives he couldn't save when he was a boy on Tarsus_ McCoy thought, but he dismissed the thought as soon as he had it. It was a mistake to try to boil down someone to a single motivation, especially someone as complex as Jim Kirk.

"Thanks Jim," McCoy said, and Spock signed off. When the comm line had gone dead, McCoy said, "We need to tell him."

He half-expected Spock to argue, but he only nodded.

"Would it be better if you did it?" McCoy asked.

"No. I am a Vulcan male and might be read as a threat. You are male, but human. He will read you as...neuter."

McCoy was pretty sure Spock had been about to say female. McCoy shook his head. If Tevak's pon farr-addled brain decided to slot him into the box called woman, well, he'd been thought of as far worse things he was sure.

He stepped back into the house, noticing as he did the little details of the space that he had skimmed over before. A box of children's toys in the corner. Some sort of fiber art project on the table. Pillows neatly placed around a firepot in the middle of the room, calling to mind the image of a family gathered around it. A picture of a sehlat. A PADD and stylus by the window. Small personal touches that showed that this house was inhabited. One life, and another tied to his. Some might think that an entire starship rerouting and Jim Kirk calling in his favors and rerouting still more ships to save one, maybe two, was excessive, but McCoy knew better. Like Jim, like Spock, like all of them, he knew that these lives were precious, and they had to do whatever they could to preserve them.

He tapped on the door to Tevak's bedroom, softly. "Go away, please." The voice sounded broken, hoarse.

"She's on her way. I can't say when exactly, but she's coming, and I think she'll be here in time. You just have to endure a little longer, okay?"

A brief silence, and then, no longer so broken and hopeless, "Thank you, Healer."

"You're welcome."

McCoy went back outside. The sky had darkened and the air had cooled. The lights had come on in the courtyard, holographic torchlight casting odd shadows. McCoy sat back down on the bench where Spock sat, statue still.

"Was he able to speak?" Spock asked. When McCoy answered in the affirmative, he said, "That is good. The plak tow has not set it. He has some time yet."

McCoy took a drink from his canteen. It was almost empty. No need to call up to the ship for more, though. No Vulcan house would deny a guest water. He frowned as he screwed the cap back on the canteen. It annoyed him how he just knew things like that sometimes. A few engrams left over from being a vessel for Spock's katra still rattling around up there.

"You've been surprisingly forthcoming," McCoy said. "I know it's not easy for you to talk about this stuff. You don't like people knowing."

Spock didn't deny it, but said, "One must give way to logic. And you are not just anyone, doctor. You are a Vulcan citizen."

McCoy sputtered. "Since when?"

Spock looked surprised. "Since your exile there. You did not know? My father arranged it. It was the easiest way to prevent your extradition. He named all of the crew of the so-called _Bounty_ guest-friends of the House of Surak, except you, Doctor."

McCoy eyed him. "Why not me?"

"Because T'Lar had already named you a guest-friend of Seleya, which is something more than even my father could offer."

"Oh, yeah, I remember T'Lar mentioning that now that you bring it up. It's a big deal?"

Spock nodded.

McCoy shook his head. If someone had told him all those years ago when he had first met this odd Vulcan man that Spock would someday be one of his best friends, that he would not only learn to grudgingly respect Vulcans, but actually come to like and appreciate their culture and even understand, to a point, their way of doing things, he would have scheduled a psych eval post-haste. Now? Guest-friend of Seleya had a nice ring to it. He wondered if it was the sort of thing you added to your professional signature.

"Can a guest-friend of Seleya get access to the private Vulcan medical texts on sexuality?"

"He can," Spock said. "Seleya is the keeper of the Vulcan heart. She holds our secrets. And someone named a guest-friend of her would be entrusted with almost anything he wished to know, with the confidence that his Silence is assured. T'Lar would not have extended the courtesy if there was a doubt of it."

McCoy heard the capital 'S'. T'Lar wasn't wrong. As much as he might desperately want to ensure that every Vulcan patient everywhere was treated by a physician who understood every aspect of their biology, he wouldn't betray any trusts. Still, he might go about assuaging his own curiosity on a few points. Probably should consult with T'Lar first, though. He didn't want to step on any toes, and she had given him her private comm link. He suspected now that that comm link hookup was a far rarer privilege than he had thought it at the time.

The comm chimed again. "Bones, we've got her! ETA is thirty one minutes."

McCoy grinned. "Jim that's fantastic!" He rose to tell Tavek, but Spock stopped him.

"An ETA is just that, estimated. Even now, his time sense will tell him precisely how many minutes have passed, and if she is not here by then, he may grow agitated."

McCoy sat back down. This was exactly why he had asked Spock to come down. At the end of the day, McCoy wasn't a Vulcan, thank all the stars in the heavens, and needed Spock to catch some of these little details.

They sat together, staring up at the night sky and the emerging stars, not talking, both lost in their own thoughts, until some time later the whine of a transporter sounded and a short, plump Vulcan woman of middle age appeared in a column of shimmering sparkles.

"Ma'am," McCoy said, rising.

"You are the healer, McCoy?" she asked, looking up at him.

"Guilty as charged," said McCoy.

She looked briefly confused and then appeared to dismiss the turn of phrase from her mind. "You sat with my husband?"

"Well he didn't really let me--"

Spock cut in with a simple, "Yes."

"I thank you both," she said. She began to turn, and then looked back. "I have left my children on your starship. May I ask that you see to them."

"Don't you worry. We'll take good care of them. Spock here loves kids. Probably give 'em piggyback rides all around the Enterprise."

Yiluv and Spock pinned him with nearly identical incredulous eyebrow raises.

"Humans make jokes at times of high stress," Spock said, in the same tone that someone used to apologize for a hyperactive dog. "Your children will be well cared for."

Yiluv inclined her head in acknowledgment and swept past them with a rustle of robes and went into the house.

McCoy stared after her for a second, and then shrugged. "Nothing more for us to do here," he said. "I guess it's between the two of them now."

"Indeed it is," said Spock. He had an odd expression on his face, and McCoy wondered again about what arrangements he might have to deal with his own biology, but he bit back the inappropriate question. _Mind your business, Leonard._

"You know," said McCoy as they were preparing for beam up. "I didn't actually do anything, but any time you leave a place pretty confident your patient will live, that's a good day.

"I quite agree, Doctor," said Spock, and the transporter took them.

end


End file.
